Women’s Civic-Political Participation Towards an Equitable and Humane Democratic Order

Abstract:

The kind of governance that Nigerians experienced since the pre-independence
period has been criticized for, among other reasons, having been characterized
by low-level citizen participation. Key aspects of this governance range from
the provisions made for participation in the 1922 Clifford Constitution; to those
in the 1947 Richards Constitution; to those in the Macpherson Constitution
which took effect in 1952; to participation in general elections beginning from
1951(I-IDEA 2000a), which a colleague described as ‘constitutional despotism’;1
and to the competitive model of democracy which Nigeria practiced just before
independence and immediately after independence in 1960, between 1979 and
1983, and which it is practicing now.